


The Voice of Time Cries to Man: Advance! (A Remix Foreshadowed)

by Muccamukk



Category: Iron Man (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Comfort Sex, Dreams and Nightmares, Iron Man Vol. 3 (1998), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-18 20:03:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13688829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: The nightmares come again and again, no matter what Tony does or Steve says. Nightmares that are impossible to forget, and tempting in the worst ways.





	The Voice of Time Cries to Man: Advance! (A Remix Foreshadowed)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Patch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598070) by [dawittiest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawittiest/pseuds/dawittiest). 



> Huge thank you to Morphia for a massive amount of cheerleading and beta reading. Seriously, thank you.
> 
> Content note: Nightmares include some body horror and character death.
> 
> Title from _The Chimes_ by Charles Dickens.

Tony woke to a tightness in his chest that nearly squeezed the breath out of him. He lay still, focusing on each inhalation and cursing silently. He'd meant to charge his heart the night before, but Steve had come over, and—aside from being a glorious distraction—Tony knew that the charging process would bother him. He'd run the math and figured he'd be good until morning, which he would have been, save for that glorious distraction in his bed. Apparently he'd expended more energy than planned. Now Tony had about half an hour to spare before the thing his rogue armor had installed in his chest wound down and choked the life out of him as it went.

He rolled forward, off the edge of the bed and out from under Steve's arm. Steve murmured in his sleep, and made a disappointed grunt when Tony replaced himself with his pillow, but didn't wake. Tony wanted to crawl back in and kiss him until neither of them could breathe, but that would have to wait until he'd charged his heart. He padded barefoot down to the lab, and hooked himself into the charging grid. Jocasta's avatar hovered above him, monitoring the power outputs.

Finally Tony put the bit between his teeth, and hit the switch, bracing himself for the electricity that would sear through every nerve. Instead of pain, this time he felt only euphoria, a giddy high like flying. He could feel his body convulsing, but with hot joy, not agony, and when Jocasta cut the feed, he fell forward into the charging rig, every cell tingling with remembered pleasure.

Tony spat out the bit and tried to breathe through the dizziness, then he stood and called up a holographic bio scan. Something had changed.

"That's not right," he said, watching the red outlines of his own body floating in front of him. The blue star of the living armor's heart looked different than it had on his last scan. "Jo, give me a mirror."

The hologram shimmered into a reflection, and Tony gasped.

The metal of the artificial heart was expanding, eating up his chest and stretching tendrils over his shoulders and down his sides. Before a rim of red scar tissue had marked the transition from skin to steel, but now they faded into each other. As Tony watched, the living armor's heart crept outward, spreading down his arms, and joining to his hips. He couldn't feel his skin turning to metal, not until it tapped into his central nervous system, and he knew that this was his skin now.

He summoned his armor with a thought and it melded to his new liquid metal skin. He wasn't wearing the Iron Man suit anymore; he'd become it. It was an extension of himself.

Another thought, and the launch path opened. Tony flew up and out into the night. Dawn was just lightening the far rim of the Atlantic, and Tony flew toward it.

He'd never flown like this, not really. Before he'd sent commands to the armor, and it had responded. No matter how hard he'd worked, how smart and responsive he'd made the onboard computer—so smart that it had sparked its own life within it—there had always been a lag. Now, thought was motion, and flight was instinct.

Tony laughed and turned loops in the sky. He dove and spiraled down the Statue of Liberty, nearly skimming the bronze.

He wished that Steve could come fly with him, and was back at the lab in seconds, then in his bedroom. He stood over Steve, who was still curled around the pillow, and reached down to touch his shoulder.

When Tony made contact, the armor flowed out, covering Steve's body as it had covered his. Steve woke, tried to struggle, cried out as the metal filled his mouth, but it was too late. No matter what he wanted, he would fly with Tony.

Tony snapped awake.

Steve murmured something behind him, still mostly asleep, and Tony rolled them both over so that he could run his hands first over Steve's chest and then his own. "Jesus," he muttered. The only metal he could feel was the living armor's heart, which was the same size it had been before.

"Tony?" Steve was wide awake now, and squinting up at him. A weak shaft of dawn light played across the wall above the bed, softening the room. It caught in Steve's hair as he sat up, haloing the messy blond.

"Nothing," Tony said. "Just a weird dream."

Steve rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. "Want to go for a run before breakfast?"

Tony shook his head. "I want to check a few things in the lab." Running with a super soldiers had never been his idea of a good time, except for the brief moment where he got to watch Steve's ass while he left Tony in the dust.

He went down to the lab and had Jocasta give him the most thorough bio-scan he'd had since the morning he'd gotten back from the Bikini Atolls. Aside from the scarring, which was beginning to heal and fade, there was no change.

That was good, wasn't it? Tony sighed and eyed the charging rig. He would have to use it this morning, and he knew that in the waking world it would hurt. He thought wistfully of the euphoria of the dream, and how it had felt to fly. Someday he'd work out how to control the armor with a thought, like that arm he'd designed for Misty Knight.

Then he would take Steve flying, the old fashioned way.

* * *

He had the same dream the next night, his flesh transmuting in to armor, only this time he knew it was a dream. He felt like he was watching himself from the outside as he flew, and as he returned to Steve's side. The bedroom had that bar of sunlight on the wall, and Steve's hair was sleep mussed as it had been the morning before. He woke this time, and half lifted his head to look at Tony standing over him.

Tony bent to kiss him, in the dream, but his face plate was in the way. Tony tried to tell it to lift, but it wouldn't. He'd become Iron Man, and there was no turning back.

"Tony?" Steve asked in the dream. "What are you doing? Take off the armor and come back to bed."

Iron Man didn't answer. Instead, he raised his gauntlet and leveled it at Steve's chest. And then he fired.

Tony woke with a jerk, and rolled out of bed and onto his hands and knees on the floor. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears, and his skin was damp with perspiration. He crouched there for a moment, gasping for breath and trying to sort through difference between dream and waking world.

On the bed, Steve shifted in his sleep, but this time didn't wake. It was still the middle of the night, and if Tony opened the blinds, he'd see only street lights far below, and darkness of the open ocean on the horizon, not the gray light that came before dawn.

He wasn't turning into his armor, and he could hear Steve breathing steadily as he slept.

"Jesus," Tony muttered. He pushed himself to his feet, and stood for a moment, trying to decide what to do. He knew he wouldn't sleep again after a nightmare like that, but at the same time there wasn't much point going down to the lab. His scans wouldn't be any different than the day before, no matter what his subconscious was hammering away at.

He showered instead, letting the hot water drill away at the memory of the dream. Maybe he would go on a run with Steve this morning. Why not enjoy the eye candy as it vanished into the distance ahead of him—and again when Steve lapped him? His nightmares and their specters of becoming his own worst creation could go fuck themselves.

* * *

Tony snapped awake. He lay frozen, breathing hard and trying his damnedest not to think about this last dream. Steve shifted beside him, making a sleepy, concerned sound, and Tony rolled over and straddled him, hitting the lights on the way by.

"Tony?" Steve asked, looking up at Tony's face, then down at where Tony had his hands on chest, right above Steve's heart. He sounded surprised, but not displeased. It was almost morning, and Steve never needed that much sleep. "You okay?"

There was no way Tony was going to talk about this. "I need you to fuck me," he said. He needed not to think ever again. Steve's chest was smooth under his hands, unscarred by y-incision or bullet holes. He wasn't dead. Tony wasn't... "Please," he begged.

"Tony, I—" Steve started, then shook his head. He reached up and pulled Tony down into a kiss. His mouth was demanding, and so was the hand on the back of Tony's neck, the fingers against his scalp. He knew what Tony needed right now. He rolled them over so that he was on top and kicked the blankets onto the floor, never breaking their kiss.

Tony let himself be manhandled. His pulse was still racing from the dream, but he made himself focus on how Steve's body felt lying along his, the press of Steve's cock hardening against his thigh, the bite of Steve's teeth on his throat as Tony tipped his head back. "Yeah," he whispered as Steve's hands slid down his chest—avoiding the metal heart by running down his ribs—until the fingers found the band of his shorts. It was going too fast; Tony had hardly had time to push the dreams away; his cock wasn't even hard, but Steve took him in his mouth anyway, sucking even as his fingernails dragged down Tony's thighs. "Oh, God," Tony gasped. His blood was rushing, tinging his vision red, and he felt as though he were falling. He'd been falling in the dream, when—

He made himself lift his head. He needed to watch Steve's head bobbing up and down on him, every breath making Tony harder. He ran his fingers through Steve's hair, then down to grip his shoulders, trying to anchor himself to the moment. He kept his eyes focused on Steve, knowing that if he closed them he'd see that image from the dream, the decaying body, the knowledge that it was his fault, the thing that was worse even than that. "Hurry up, dammit," he demanded.

He could feel Steve's lips tighten around the base of his cock, and knew that Steve was smiling as he swallowed Tony down. It didn't make it go faster though. Steve kept up his steady pace, pulling Tony apart one strand at a time. He knew his nails were biting into Steve's shoulders, and he made himself curl his hands into the sheets instead. Tony wasn't going to hurt anyone, not ever again.

Steve slid his fingers into Tony—he was still loose and slick from the night before—and Tony's hips jerked up. He couldn't stop himself, now, it was all rushing too fast, and he wanted too much. Steve's hand on his hip, mouth on his cock, fingers inside him, all pulling him down and down. He'd already felt scrubbed raw when they'd started. Tony came with an incoherent gasp that should have been Steve's name. For a sweet, perfect moment, he didn't see anything at all.

Then he felt Steve's broad hands turning him again, and he spread his legs to let Steve pull his ass up and toward him. He crouched half on his knees, his face buried in the pillow, eyes now squeezed shut. He wouldn't remember. He—

Steve smacked his hip, just hard enough to sting. "Stark, this is Houston. Do you read?" It should have been a line that came with a laugh and an opening for a smart reply, but he sounded dead serious. "Tony?"

Tony sank down and pushed his ass back towards Steve. "Seriously, don't you have places to be?" he asked, trying to sound cutting, but failing at banter just as miserably as Steve had.

He heard Steve sigh behind him, and then the crinkle of a wrapper, but his other hand didn't leave Tony's hip. Soon he had all he'd ever wanted: the slow, hot slide of Steve's cock entering him.

"Is this what you want?" Steve asked. His cock was buried deep in Tony's ass, and he bent over to whisper in Tony's ear.

"Yes," Tony said. "This. Forever."

Steve's breath tickled Tony's hair as he fucked him deep and slow, and Tony could feel his heartbeat. He hadn't lied: he wanted to stay just like this, all night, and all the next day, and for however long it took him to forget. He jerked his head up when Steve nipped at his neck, pulling him back into the moment.

"Practically, speaking," Steve told him as he paused for breath, "even I've got to run out of go eventually." He was holding his weight off Tony with one arm, while the other wrapped around Tony's chest and pulled their bodies together. They seemed to breath as one, and Tony thought fleetingly that Steve's heart could work for both of them. The metaphor was so on point that he had to laugh when he thought of it. It might have sounded like a sob through the pillow, because Steve kissed his neck at the edge of his hair, and then whispered, "As long as I can, for you."

Tony shivered at the words, and then at the glorious feel of Steve getting his second wind. He rose up on his knees, taking Tony's hips in an iron hold and driving into him with the power and synchronicity of a four-stroke piston. Tony went from breathing in time with his thrusts to not breathing at all as the feeling of Steve's perfect, living body taking him over pushed everything else out. He gasped in a lungful of air as Steve thrust into him with enough force to knock them both over.

They fell sideways in a tangle of legs, and this time Tony's laugh was clear. Steve swore softly in his ear, then pulled him flush against his chest while they caught their breath. "You want to talk about that?" he asked Tony, some minutes later.

They were still lying joined, skin to skin, and Tony was seriously planning on never moving again. He shook his head. He knew that there were a thousand things he should tell Steve, the most important being that if he ever turned into that thing in his dreams—the machine who killed his lover and felt nothing—that Steve should have his advance request to put a bullet in his skull for both their sake. He knew what Steve would say, though, and he didn't want to hear empty reassurances. Tony knew all too well what he was capable of, even if the image of Steve from the dream might make him hesitate at a moment of choice. Would even that make a difference.

Steve kissed the back of his neck and sighed softly, drifting off into his own dreamland.

Tony closed his eyes, glad he hadn't had to answer, certain now that he couldn't have answered. He drifted off, and when he dreamed, it was of an armor where thought was motion, and flight was instinct.


End file.
